KILLINAN END - Wexford doing things their way

If ever a county likes to get its business out of the way early, it surely is Wexford.

Not only have they a new manager to replace Darragh Egan in place already but they have the pesky business of the county senior hurling championship in the can as well.

Keith Rossiter looks a good choice of manager on the face of it from experience with David Fitzgerald’s management team and subsequently with the Under-20 team. Add in ten County Senior medals with Oulart-the-Ballagh as well as many years as a Wexford player and he appears as qualified as any local in Wexford could reasonably be at this stage. A player on the 2004 Wexford team which won the county’s only Leinster title in those dark years between 1997 and 2019, and part of the management team in the latter success, he is indelibly associated with some of Wexford’s good days.

There is always the friction in a county such as Wexford between bringing in someone from outside who has been experience with successful set-ups already, and the prospect of the local man who knows the scene. Liam Dunne had achieved some progress for Wexford before they brought in the man from Clare and now, they go back to the local solution. The fundamentals of the job have not changed.

Darragh Egan’s achievement in beating Kilkenny and keeping Wexford in the MacCarthy Cup might well be looked back on as a high-water mark if Wexford remain vulnerable against Dublin and Westmeath. A big factor in Wexford always appears to be generating enthusiasm and giving a tangible sense of progress. They seem to have that symbiotic connection with supporters hungry for success and that will need to be harnessed but it will need to be complemented by method and strategy.

Wexford’s great challenge has been consistency. Their relationship with Kilkenny reflects this. They have been beaten just once in their last five championship meetings with the Black and Amber, yet Kilkenny are the ones with four consecutive Leinster titles. They are unlikely to be able to rely on beating Kilkenny every year as a get-out-of-jail card. It should form part of a broader consistent level of performance rather than an unlikely heroic rescue mission.

An extraordinary aspect of Wexford’s local business is the rude urgency with which they get their county championship played. This is certainly an exciting competition by all appearances. Not since 2016 when Oulart-the-Ballagh managed it has the title been retained. That was Oulart’s tenth title in thirteen seasons. The club has won all its thirteen county Senior titles since 1994, leaving them second on the roll of honour. This is how that county works. Buffer’s Alley stand just behind Oulart on twelve titles, all won between 1968 and 1992. Tony Doran won a county medal on each occasion. Let nobody say he did not play his part.

Rathnure remain top of the pile at senior level with 20 titles won between 1948 and 2006. They were relegated to intermediate level in 2023, which maybe reflects the value of rolls of honour – grand on a high stool but they butter few parsnips in the throes of a relegation play-off.

Wexford has 12 Senior teams which play in two groups of six. Each team plays five games with four of the six progressing to the quarter-finals. Some would argue with this, as with say the All-Ireland football championship system, that it involves thirty games to eliminate just four of the twelve teams. But maybe the most interesting thing about this is that the five group games are played on consecutive weekends. Then the next three weekends see the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and the final. The teams contesting the County Final will have played eight times in eight weeks. They winners will then have to keep things ticking over until November when they play their first game in the Leinster championship.

In the Model County, the football championship started the very next weekend with the same system in place. Teams play almost to a standstill week after week. Yes, their fixtures are predictable, but you wonder if predictability is all it’s cracked up to be. From the month of June to October a dual player of a successful club could find themselves playing sixteen weeks running. People would point to Loughmore-Castleiney, but you wonder about a system which plans all of this so rigidly week after week.

The feeling on the ground in Wexford is that discussion will be had in the near future on the impact of this on teams. Injuries, fatigue, general player welfare, are likely to be themes in such discussions. Not that the old system was beyond reproach of course. A few years back teams played two championship games in April before resuming maybe three months later after Wexford’s championship interest ended. On the other hand, a county champion team waiting three month to play in the provincial championship is hardly ideal either. Surely there’s a reasonable middle-ground?